Communal living

We have all grown up in a so called 'middle class' upbringing. Joint families, jurassic age neighbors, teachers who have taught your uncles, knowing the number of wrinkles of everyone in your neighborhood..the works. And that's supposed to be Utopia.

Maybe it is. Maybe not. That's not the point. The point is, Hollywood (and then automatically Bollywood and then any wood) INSISTS that 'the golden age has gone'. The age of communal living, sharing, helping, adjusting, frustating...i dont know, i have run out of 'ing' words. But that's maybe because i have never lived in a chawl, or a 'para' or whatever vernacular a commune goes by.

AAAAH! The concept of the chawl! Where else will one find a potboiler such as a chawl, where everyone's worry is everone else's and every joy, sorrow, rage, madness is distributed and broken down in tiny little pieces, so that finally there is nothing left, apart from the numbing dreary meaningless existence where nothing really matters, where it all comes down to the lowest common denominator, who wakes up to fill the buckets, who gets the first shot at the virgin loo, who gets the first steaming loaf of bread from the yawning delivery boy. But then, at the end of day, if u havent done anything of the above, have failed to achieve each and every one of these magnificient tasks, well..the chawl is waiting. You go back, and find other people who are at your level, failures in all that they have attempted today, and cosy, comfortable and cushioned in the communal feeling..that fraternity of failed brotherhood, a brotherhood where everyone is happy, and no one dares voice their deepest, darkest insecurities, where brothers in arms perish together, happy for the warmth, succumbing to that numbing nothingness.

So..which 'chawl' are you in?

What some women don't understand

is that, for some of us enlightened ones, sex is a form of worship. When we say we want to have sex, and the bill has not yet arrived, it doesn't mean we are desperate, or deprived or perverted or chauvanists or anything. Its just that we are so in the throes of this deep religious awe, surrender and worship, that our expressions of submission and supplication need outlets..whatever the cost or the outlet.

One can't be hyocrite when it comes to religion, can one?

Defining a movie experience

I am no longer a movie buff. Over the weekend I watched Postman Always Rings Twice, Taxi Driver, Streetcar Called Desire, Chariots of Fire and The Graduate. And then I switched to television and watched KANK..and I watched it right upto its ridiculous ending..and I didnt switch channels in the breaks..and I related to a lot of situations in the movie..and kind of forgot how Taxi Driver ended..

So the question that popped up was...what defines a movie experience? When does bad cinema capture one's imagination? Does a chilling movie like Taxi Driver not stay with you because you do not relate to it? And by the same logic, does a rank bad movie like KANK grip me enough to make me sit through it because i can identify with the characters?

I dont know. I guess I should stick to No Entry in the future.

Me and my bloody luck

'What's your name', she asked me, moving her chair closer to mine.

'Neil', I said, indicating the empty chair next to mine.

'You bastard', she said, and walked away in a huff.

Weeks later, I found out that she thought i was asking her to kneel.